Golden boy of English rugby, who has set the standard for fly-halves, shows
what can be achieved by continued hard work, dedication and sacrifice for
the team

Jonny Wilkinson is the kid who came into the England set-up and dragged a lot of us from the dark ages into the future. His levels of dedication and ability to physically and mentally crucify himself were a genuine shock. Respect was earned the hard way – by showing you he would never back down or run away.

He has not changed all that much over the years. Mellowed, yes; matured, certainly; easier on himself, that is debatable.

Take an example from this season when Jonny refused to miss his pre-match routine – which consists of booting the ball yet another umpteen hundred times as he searches for the elusive muscle mastery. On the morning of a match, away at Glasgow, in his final year of competition, with the pitches sodden and shut to practice, the golden boy of English rugby practised his kicking in a Tesco car park. I find myself giggling just writing it. Would any of you still be doing it if you were in his shoes?

Jonny refuses to ever stop searching for perfection. If there was ever a man who has maximised his talent it is him. On Saturday he takes on Owen Farrell in the Heineken Cup final, and there is nothing that I like more than pitting a young pretender against a great of the game and trying to work out who has the edge at the differing stages of their careers.

The two of them have a lot of the same strengths and weaknesses. Both are hard as nails, physically and mentally. When you need them to kick the big ones, they do – last week they had missed three pots at goal each and yet both stayed ice cool and got back on their horse, slotting the ones that mattered in big domestic semi-finals. I would back both to kick a last-minute touchline winner because so much of rugby is in the head and these two never doubt themselves on the field. They have ridiculous engines, covering and hustling and communicating.

They share a love of the big hit and a desire to give up the body to the team cause. Wilkinson, of Toulon, goes slightly lower; more of a textbook tackler, more suited to the older days of drift defending, less pace off the defensive line, working in units and relying on trust, focused on getting the man to deck quickly and doing his job. Saracens' Farrell is all modern snarl. Front on, chest on, he has good upper body strength, and much more confrontational line speed. He gets out of the blocks looking to lead the line rather than be a part of it. He really tries to inflict himself on an attacker and wants to intimidate, to force the error, using the modern style of defence as a weapon.

Where Farrell needs to catch up a bit is on his ability to hit a dropped goal off either foot. Wilkinson is the supreme sniper of his age, and he really does have the medal to prove it. The last time the two met, the defining image was of Wilkinson hitting a dropped goal and Farrell doing his best, looming as big as he could, trying to block it. He failed, and it is something that he will be looking to put right this afternoon.

Both have had problems passing out of their weaker hand, although Wilkinson has had more years to iron out the glitches. He had a habit of throwing a brick in the early days if things went wrong, but got much smoother, and he can fizz the ball or float it with ease. In his early days, he was much more mechanical going right to left; planted the feet, lost the gain-line threat, and allowed defenders to push a little.

Farrell, going left to right, has a similar issue. Watch him warm up and you would not believe me, as passes go either way, flying fast and hitting targets. But come game time, when he wants to be sure, he often reverts to an end-on-end rugby league-style pass. Nothing wrong with the accuracy, but it is the comfort blanket of passes – more lob in the flight and, because of that, all the easier to read for a defender.

Variation in pass flight and power can be a real strength, but when confined to a looser, longer air-time of pass going one way, defences can champ at the bit. This style of pass put Brad Barritt in the lurch last week, and with it Harlequins grabbed a six-point half-time lead against Saracens.

Tied up with this passing problem is the fact that both players can have issues with depth awareness, and it is not something that comes naturally. Jonny Sexton, Dan Carter and Stephen Jones are players you would call more spacially aware. They were and are much more comfortable using alignment and variation of speed as a weapon. Again Wilkinson has had more time to iron out the problems, and in Matt Giteau alongside him, he has one of the master craftsmen when it comes to reading and adapting to defensive systems.

Jonny today is much more comfortable with letting an early ball go, of simply being a conduit for the rest of his back line. In the old days, he used to practise holding a defender by taking extra steps, unbelievable nifty footwork but wasting valuable time for the men outside when the space had already been created. Give and support is a magical thing and you only need to think of Mark Ella to understand just how beautifully effective it can be.

For Owen, this style of play is his greatest challenge. He has made huge strides forward with club, country and Lions in the past year. But he is still behind players such as George Ford when it comes to instantaneous decisions on when to attack flat, drop deep, delay the pass, or give it early. Some people have it naturally, others such as Farrell need to learn when to attack the gain line as first receiver with ball in hand or when to let it move. You need experience to understand when to let the ball sing, and this part of Farrell’s game is what Kevin Sorrell and Mike Catt will have top of their list in helping him to improve.

And you can bet the house that he will work on it, because that is probably where Farrell is the most similar to Wilkinson; they put the hours in, they realise that they have one crack at it, and they want to be the best they can. Wilkinson is approaching the end of his journey yet even though he is not the most naturally talented player this country has ever produced, he has made himself the greatest team-mate and job-doer you could ask for. He had the vision of where he wanted to go and the understanding that he had weaknesses and no one has the god-given right to be the best in the world. Every right is earned.

Farrell is at a different point of his growth but has a similar self-awareness. And should he ever doubt what can be achieved by hard work, dedication and sacrifice for the team, then all he needs to do is look across at his opposite number and he will see the perfect example.